Unpredictable foreign countries and risky junk bonds, once considered the ugly ducklings of investments, have provided some beautiful returns in closed- end funds this year. The Chile Fund, for example, is up a handsome 64 percent in total return, one of a number of strong performers that also includes First Phillipine Fund, up 56 percent. Among high-yield bonds for the most aggressive of investors, the Prospect Street High Income Portfolio is up 46 percent and the New...

By Emily Flitter NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. authorities are probing UBS AG for criminal fraud after a former broker in Puerto Rico allegedly directed clients to improperly borrow money to buy mutual funds that later plunged, according to lawyers representing some of the investors. At issue is whether UBS executives in Puerto Rico and in the United States knew proceeds from loans made by a Utah unit of the Swiss bank were used in a way that violated...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Investors chasing yield in this low-rate environment are jumping into alternative vehicles. That's helping closed-end income funds stage a comeback. Such funds, which offer a fixed number of shares and are closed to new capital once they start operating, have their attractions, but investors should exercise caution. Expenses for closed-end funds tend to be higher than with exchange-traded funds, they are more complex and they usually carry more risk. Their...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street watchdog FINRA said on Monday it is lifting the hold it had put on some cases involving investors who lost money in closed-end Puerto Rico bond funds after expanding its pool of arbitrators available to hear the cases. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said on Monday there are currently about 700 eligible arbitrators on its roster who have agreed to serve in Puerto Rico, where FINRA expects the majority of the roughly...

By Greg Roumeliotis Jan 3 (Reuters) - Carlyle Group LP is preparing to launch its first two publicly listed mutual funds, according to a regulatory filing by the latest alternative asset manager seeking to offer its investment platform to retail investors in this way. Carlyle Enhanced Commodity Real Return Fund will mainly invest in commodity sectors including energy and metals, while Carlyle Global Core Allocation Fund will invest...

For obvious reasons, receiving a discount is more popular than paying a premium. Closed-end funds, which are investments usually able to be purchased at a modest discount, have gained attention this year because those discounts have widened. There are more than 650 closed-end funds, with a total market capitalization of $300 billion. Some homework is required to understand how they work and determine if you are getting a deal. Like many of the more familiar open-end mutual funds, they...

By John Wasik CHICAGO, April 26 (Reuters) - Investors chasing yield in this low-rate environment are jumping into alternative vehicles. That's helping closed-end income funds stage a comeback. Such funds, which offer a fixed number of shares and are closed to new capital once they start operating, have their attractions, but investors should exercise caution. Expenses for closed-end funds tend to be higher than with exchange-traded funds, they are...

Last week's column discussed the increasing activism toward publicly traded companies by institutional investors, including a few mutual funds. Activism by shareholders of mutual funds, on the other hand, is practically non-existent--except in the highly specialized world of closed-end mutual funds. When most investors discuss mutual funds, they are talking about open-end funds, which buy and sell their own shares. Closed-end funds do not. Instead, they are investment pools...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - DoubleLine Capital LP, the investment firm run by star bond manager Jeffrey Gundlach, said on Friday that it had completed an initial public offering for the closed-end DoubleLine Income Solutions Fund . The fund, which Gundlach and portfolio managers Bonnie Baha and Luz Padilla will manage, raised $2.3 billion from the offering of 92 million common shares at $25 each. The fund trades on the New York Stock Exchange. The managers plan to...

Closed-end funds may seem like a natural for retirees. The mutual funds, which invest in a basket of securities and trade as a unit on an exchange, offer dividends that frequently are more attractive than bond market yields, and they can have greater tax efficiency than the more common open-end funds. Closed-end funds issue a limited number of shares and trade at a discount or premium to the net asset value of the underlying securities. They also engage in leverage...

Investors have plunked $85 billion into something different, and they like it. Many closed-end funds have been turning in excellent performances in 1991. The Herzfeld Closed-End Average of 19 closed-end equity funds is up 18 percent, roughly twice the gain of the Dow Jones industrial average this year. Among these hybrid investments, single-country health-care and financial institution funds have done best. The fact that most closed-end funds emphasize smaller and medium-size...

Oct 26 (Reuters) - Moody's Investors Service has assigned an Aa3 rating to $125 million of Variable Rate Term Preferred Shares (VRTP) to be issued by the Invesco Van Kampen Senior Income Trust (VVR), a New York Stock Exchange listed closed-end fund investing in a portfolio of senior secured floating rate loans.

Many closed-end funds are selling at steep discounts these days, offering investors the tantalizing possibility of handsome profits. After all, a discount is a bargain, whether you buy a cartful of groceries or a basket of stocks. But in the arcane world of closed-end funds, some investors are finding that bargains can prove illusory and discounts don`t necessarily turn into dollars. The discounts from portfolio value, which can exceed 20 percent,...